DOS DE OCTUBRE DEMONSTRATION MARRED BY CLASHES

Every year on October 2, thousands march from la plaza de las tres culturas (square of three cultures) in Tlatelolco to the zócalo in the historic centre of Mexico City. The march commemorates the victims of a student massacre in 1968. The committee of 1968 led the march followed by parents of the missing, presumed dead, Ayotzinapa students. After arriving to the zócalo in the late afternoon, a rally began and while a minute of silence was being afforded in memory to the thousands of dead and missing in Mexico, a small group of self-described anarchists began to launch fireworks and rocks at police officers stationed next to the national palace on the south-eastern corner of the zócalo.

Police retaliated with tear gas which led to a rapid retreat of the anarchists and everyone else in the vicinity and put an early end to the rally. However, a game of cat and mouse continued to proceed in Mexico City’s downtown as police advanced only for a small minority of protestors to return with reinforcements and continue to clash with police. The police eventually succeeded in driving the aggressors to eje central, the main avenue of the city’s centre. Minor clashes continued behind the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

I later returned to the zócalo which presented a surreal, almost apocalyptical scene. A message emanating from the national palace was amplified on loop stating that the right to protest is respected but must be done in a pacific manner. Placards drifted across the concrete expanse in a slight breeze, a small fire burnt and the sun set on another dos de octubre, this one 47 years on.